A radio base station system includes a radio equipment controller (REC) and a radio equipment (RE). The interface connecting the REC and the RE can be described as an REC-RE interface.
The common public radio interface (CPRI) standard is an interface standard defined by communication equipment vendors. According to the standard, the REC-RE interface connecting the REC and RE is a CPRI interface.
The open base station architecture initiative (OBSAI) standard is another interface standard defined by communication equipment vendors. According to the standard, the REC-RE interface connecting the REC and RE is an OBSAI interface.
With the rapid development of radio network technologies, to protect investments of operators and reduce the risk caused by market changes, the industry proposes the concept of multi-mode base station. One description of the concept of multi-mode base station is: a base station which can support the application of two or more communication modes in one cabinet.
The benefits of multi-mode base stations include:
(1) The base station equipment including its hardware platform and software architecture can be reused.
(2) Repeated equipment installation is spared and the space of sites is reduced.
For example, the concept of global system for mobile communications/universal mobile telecommunications system (GSM/UMTS) dual-mode base station emerged at the end of the 1990s with the gradual maturity of the international mobile telecommunication-2000 (IMT-2000) technology. However, because the lifecycle of GSM is far longer than expected and the software defined radio (SDR) technology makes slow progress, SDR-based multi-mode base stations cannot satisfy the needs of operators.
Multi-mode base station solutions are still urgently required in the market.